Telling the Truth for Women

Jill Briscoe: I'd like you to open your Bibles to 2 Corinthians chapter nine and Luke chapter one. We'll be in both passages of scripture as we think a little bit about Christmas and get our hearts ready for it today. It's a strange passage to turn to for Christmas, but Paul is talking about giving. We're going to think a little bit about giving and the joy of giving as we concentrate on focusing on what Christmas is all about.

I'm making my list of gifts. I need to make my list. If you're a list lady, you live by making little lists, and what better time to make lists than at Christmas? I remember last Christmas as we had our family Christmas time, and the children tore the wrappings off the paper, looked at the present, and then put it down and took the next one. All of us, parents and grandparents alike, didn't like what we saw.

It's as if there's a greed need in all of us. If we're not careful, the getting of gifts feeds it, especially where the children are concerned. We had a long talk as a family about what we could do to redress the balance, to reverse the whole trend of it. The first Christmas came along, and there was only one gift, and God gave it: the gift of his Son. I have two sons, and I can't imagine wrapping one up to give away at Christmas time, but that's what God did.

God's gift. That's what brought to mind 2 Corinthians chapter nine. Paul is talking about giving. He says in verse six, talking to Christians, "Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly. Whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each man should give what he's decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver." The word is hilarious. God loves an extravagant giver. When I think of God giving at Christmas, he was extravagant in the extreme. He was generous to a fault.

Of course, all giving should reflect the gift at Christmas. How did God give? He gave not grudgingly or of necessity; he gave hilariously, cheerfully. God loves a cheerful giver because he is a cheerful giver. What an incredible thing it is that the grace of God was able to give a gift to the world that he knew would be mishandled and misused, rather like some of the grandchildren that would unwrap a present and look at it and then put it down to find the next one.

That's what mankind did in a sense. They unwrapped God's gift and put it aside to look for something that they would rather have or the excitement of something perhaps better that was hidden in the next package. But God is able to make all grace abound to us so that in all things at all times, having all that we need, we will abound in every good work. Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness.

You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion. Why does God gift us with health and strength to make money? That we might be rich in every way, that we may be generous on every occasion. The whole thing is giving, not getting. Through our generosity, thanksgiving will result to God. Paul goes on talking about the overflowing of these many expressions of thanks to God, the generosity of the Corinthians in giving a gift of money to alleviate people's need and his need in particular.

Your generosity in sharing with those in need and with everyone else will result in thanks to God. He ends this passage with these words: "Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift." "Unspeakable gift," the NIV has it. The King James has it, "Indescribable gift." When I was thinking about what I wanted to say, I thought that's what I want to talk about. I want to talk about God's giving, his motive, his intent, his indescribable gift.

Then I thought how ridiculous: how can you describe what's indescribable? His unspeakable gift: how can you speak about the unspeakable? And yet we must try. We must try to speak the unspeakable, describe the indescribable, because Paul did. The apostles did. The church down the ages has tried to describe the indescribable and speak about the unspeakable.

It was last summer that Stewart and I went to Zimbabwe. My back had happened to be playing up, and so I got myself there out of sheer willpower. I'd waited all my life to see the Victoria Falls. He'd talked about it so much. "One day, Jill, I'll take you to see the Victoria Falls." Victoria Falls are one of the seven wonders of the world, but nothing—no pictures, postcards, geography books, or descriptions—could prepare me for the impact of walking around that corner in the forest where Livingstone's statue stands looking over the falls.

Livingstone stood looking over the falls where he first saw it, where he first discovered it, the first white man to ever see it. Nothing can prepare you for the impact of one mile of water, and you can see it all at once from that point. One mile of water cascading probably deeper than any falls in the world. The impact is so incredible, so indescribable, and so unspeakable. And yet I must try, because it spoke of God's majesty and God's glory. When I came back, I kept saying to people, "Oh, I must tell you about the Victoria Falls."

There was another time not too long ago when Stewart and I were in Phnom Penh making a film for World Relief. Behind my husband stood this incredible glass monument with skulls inside: 9,000 skulls in that monument. It's indescribable. It's unspeakable. But I must try, for it must be told. In the same way, as I think about trying to talk about the incarnation, this indescribable, unspeakable gift of God, I feel so diminished in my ability to find the words, the concepts, the pictures, and the illustrations to do justice to God's extravagant generosity when he laid his Son in a manger, this indescribable gift of joy.

Joy is Jesus wrapped in swaddling bands. Joy is Jesus in Mary's loving hands. Joy is Jesus making sorrow sing, mending deepest heartaches, what a gift to bring. For brought he from the heavens, knowing well his plan, laid him in our hostile arms, precious Son of Man. Knowing all beforehand, the crib, the cross, the cost, he came to taste our Calvarys and seek and save the lost.

That's you and me and everyone who's living on this earth. That's men and women, black and white, who need and want new birth. That's those of us with broken hearts, and those who celebrate. It's those of us who love and laugh, and those of us who hate. If empty were the manger and empty was the cross, if tomb of Jesus occupied, then all of us be lost. But here lies heaven's treasure, God's precious dearest prize, and in him can all our future hopes and dreams be realized.

May the joy of Jesus fill you and the peace of God be known, till we celebrate our Christmases around our Savior's throne. Where was Jesus going that first Christmas? You say to Bethlehem; no. You say to Nazareth; no. You say to Gethsemane, to Calvary, and to the garden tomb; no. Where was he going? To his throne. That's where he was going. But on the way was a lot of tears, a lot of pain, and a lot of heartache.

Knowing where Jesus was going, God in his extravagant generosity gave the most precious person that he had, his own beloved Son. It was not a few years ago now that I stood in front of a thousand refugees. I've told this so often, perhaps because it had such an impact on me, wondering what to say to them. It was near Christmas time. I looked at my notes prepared at home in my safe house where the police force guards me, and grocery stores are full of food, and my family is within reach.

I realized that my little talk was not going to do it. How could I stand up and say God loves you and I do too? That wasn't going to do it. What I did was simply tell them the story of Christmas and Calvary and show them how that when Jesus was a baby, the soldiers came for him like the soldiers had come for their babies, and how they'd had to run away to Egypt and become refugees. Yes, they understood. They linked into what I was saying.

Then we stepped through the gospel, and I asked the Lord to just help me spontaneously to remember all the things that they could identify with: his homelessness, nowhere to lay his head. Yes, they understood. His poverty. Yes, they understood. And the cross, hanging there naked. Yes, they understood. Many of them had been there. Then I said, "You didn't have a choice. Much of this has happened to you. You didn't have a choice. Much of this has happened to your sons. You didn't have a choice.

But this happened to God's Son, and God had a choice, and he knew it would happen, and he allowed it to happen, and he sent him anyway. And Jesus knew it would happen, and he came anyway, submitting himself to nine months as a fetus and a birth process that every human being on this world has known." Why did he do it? Why did he come? For God so loved the world he gave his only begotten Son, and his only begotten Son so loved the world he voluntarily came. The crib, the cross—why? For the crown. For the crown, so that he could make a difference and bring Christmas into our lives.

The problem is Christmas has ceased to be a faith festival. It's now a fun festival, an opportunity to waltz, not to worship. In other words, it's a winter mass, not a Christ mass. It's winter without Christmas. I think it was a few Christmases ago I brought that thought to you from Lewis's Narnia, this children's fantasy, *The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe*. A wicked queen in this story of Lewis has invaded the land of Narnia and turned the lovely weather into winter.

It's a picture of sin coming into this lovely earth that God had made, this world that was perfect, and spoiling it all and turning the weather into winter. The situation in Lewis's book is explained as winter without Christmas. What an apt description of people's lives this is. Even as people go through the ritual of celebration over this holiday, their hearts are caught up in the icy grip of disillusionment, fear, sorrow, and despair.

In Lewis's Narnia, the only thing that can make a difference in the frozen situation is a lion's roar, or to be more precise, the lion's roar: Aslan, the King of Narnia representing God. When he shakes his mane, the ice begins to melt, and the wicked queen's days are numbered, and the promise of spring appears. So it was when Jesus, the Lion of Judah, makes his appearance at Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the King, that the lion roared, and our cold dark winter has a Christmas to look back to and the promise of a Christmas to look forward to in eternity.

May the joy of Jesus fill you and the peace of God be known till we celebrate our Christmases around our Savior's throne. There will be a Christmas for those of us that believe what Christmas was all about. He came to save the world, a world of shepherds, innkeepers, Josephs, Marys, wise men, Simeons, and Annas. The incarnation: unspeakable, indescribable, but we must try. Our God contracted in a span, incomprehensibly made man.

We must borrow people's words like the hymn writer's words: "Hark the herald angels sing, glory to the newborn King. Veiled in flesh the Godhead see, hail the incarnate deity." Which of us can find the words? I certainly can't, but other people have, and we must try. Divinity breathing in air with a boy's lungs. Eternity eating a meal with a boy's joy. The Trinity coming to stay in a boy's house, in a boy's pain, in a boy's world. Eminence contained. Immanence, that's immediate presence experienced. Holiness explained in a boy. Truth read clearly, love loved dearly, God known nearly in a boy.

How can we get this over to people so that they don't have a winter mass and rather have a Christmas? Well, I'm glad it's all over for Jesus. I always know that I cry on Easter because it's all over for him and he's on his throne. But other people are busy in this world having their first Christmases. Their lives have been a winter, and I want to look at a few of those people and bring some lessons from their lives to bear. Mary, she'd never had a Christmas before, only winters: a winter of problems.

She was teenage, she was pregnant, and everyone wanted the life of her baby. Some 2,000 years ago, Joseph, son of Jacob, faced with an unwanted pregnancy, had it in mind, in order to avoid public disgrace, to put her away privately—Mary, I mean. If Joseph had been faced with that unwanted pregnancy in the '90s, he might have had it in mind to take it away privately—the fetus, I mean. Just think. Then there would have been no Savior, no forgiveness, no hope of heaven, no one to listen to our prayers, no Jesus.

What ever would have happened to us if someone had aborted Jesus? Yet Jesus said, "As much as you have done it unto one of the least of these, he have done it unto me." Mary was a teenager, Mary was pregnant, and Mary was faced with the option of having her first Christmas. People have the option of having a first Christmas, of having Christ incarnated in them, of having Christ child by the Holy Spirit come to live within their lives. Even as Mary physically had the Christ child come and live in her life, we can spiritually have the Christ child come and live in ours.

Mary took the option and she had her first Christmas: God in her arms in the human shape and substance of a real-life baby. When God became a baby, he knew he'd have to compress his vastness, glory, and majesty into littleness. As Luci Shaw puts it, find her poetry, buy it, give it. But as she puts it in her poem about Mary: "In blue homespun the bend of her breast, keeping warm this small hot naked star fallen in her arms, Mary watched in awe. Quietly he lies, whose vigor hurled a universe. He sleeps, whose eyelids had not closed before. Charmed by dove's voices, the whisper of straw, he dreams, hearing no music from his other sphere. Breath, mouth, ears, eyes, he is curtailed who overflowed the skies. All years older than eternity, now he is new. Now native to earth as we are, nailed to our poor planet, caught that we might be free."

Marvelous poetry. I love it. I love so many of those concepts. He who overflowed all skies, now he is curtailed. He who was the ancient of days, older than eternity, now he is new. It's indescribable. It's unspeakable. How can any of us ever do justice to what happened at Christmas? Isn't it a long way away from the pretty sidewalks and Rudolph and the jingling bells? Yes. We need a Christmas in our hearts to make sense of the past and the future and help us deal and cope with the present.

I think of Mary accepting that responsibility. It did not change her situation. She was forever marred; her reputation was forever spoiled. Even when Jesus Christ was 30 years of age and he was in ministry, people called him a bastard and his mother worse. She never, ever got over the incarnation where she was concerned. And yet she had a Christmas. When she had a Christmas in her heart, her first Christmas, she said, "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God, my Savior. I have joy in the middle of the pain." It didn't change her situation, but it changed her.

I think of Joseph and his first Christmas. He was older than Mary, seen many winters in more ways than one. The winter of poverty. Carpenters were pretty low on the totem pole. There was no money for health care, vacations, or new clothes for the kids, never mind himself. When they brought Jesus to the temple, he brought two pigeons, a poor man's gift. Isn't it ironic that he, the Lamb of God, did not have a lamb to offer as a sacrifice for his purification? Only two pigeons.

It didn't change. Joseph was poor all his life, yet he was rich. For there is a poverty of spirit. There are poor little rich people around this Christmas who have a winter mass to celebrate but not a Christmas. He had a winter of poverty and he had a winter of pain. He'd been through those relational things. He was thinking about divorce that Christmas, minded to put her away privately. How could she do this? Struggling in his relationships, thinking about divorce, he had a Christmas. His marriage was saved. He was saved. Joseph's first Christmas. He found that the best things in life were free.

What about the shepherds? They had their first Christmas. "Let's go to Bethlehem and see," they said. They'd had many winters without Christmas too. They were the despised, the ones that you'd cross over the other side of the street if you saw them coming. They were thieves, mainly because they couldn't make enough money to survive. I remember my mother saying during the Second World War, when we were hearing about ordinary people in Germany who were starving to death through the bad war years and how they were stealing to get money for their children.

My mother said to me, "They're mothers just like we are." She looked at me and she said, "If the only way I could feed you was to steal a loaf of bread, I would do it. I would do it." I've often thought about that. We think that's wrong, stealing's wrong. But would we do it? I think we're tempted to steal in all sorts of ways even now. I was tempted in the airport to steal something the other day. I put my dollar in the cart rack. You can put a dollar in a cart rack and get a cart out to carry your luggage.

I had one end of the airport to get to to the other end, and I had some heavy bags. So I got my little cart and I put the bags on it, and then I went into an area where I had a cup of coffee. You could leave your bag cart, but you had to take your bags off it, and they gave you a sticker. You could put your name on it and you stuck it on your thing, and then when you came back, your cart was still there. When I came back, somebody had taken my cart.

Now yes, it only cost a dollar. I could have gone all the way down, found another cart rack, and got it, but I felt very violated. How could they steal my cart? I had to get right down. I'd left it to the last minute because I knew I had a cart and I could zip down to the gate. Here I was with the heavy bags and no cart, and nowhere could I see another one. But there were four others standing next to me, and they all had stickers on them. I stood there for quite a while thinking, "Somebody did it to me. Somebody's got my cart. I don't know who Jane and Anne and Bob and whatnot are, and who cares? I'll take their cart."

I didn't. I want you to know I didn't. Aren't you proud of me? But if I had, and I could have done just as easily as I didn't, that would have been stealing. It's only a dollar, it's only a cart. Somebody stole my cart. If I had taken someone else's, that would have been stealing. It's amazing what we are capable of doing. So when we think of the shepherds and the thieves and rogues that they were, you have to ask yourself why.

As I work with the poor, many people say, "They're such rogues and thieves, why bother with them?" They're stealing to feed their child. What would you do if the only way you could feed your children was to steal a loaf of bread? Yet Joseph was a righteous man. He was a just man. He never stole a cart, and he never stole a loaf of bread, and it never changed. He died a poor man. He lived a poor man. He was born a poor man.

What I love about the shepherds and what I love when I think about Joseph is that the incarnation means that Jesus comes to us where we are. He comes to the shepherds in the fields. He's the Good Shepherd. He sent them to a stable where sheep would be kept. Their world. He wanted them to know he understood sheep and shepherds and hills and crooks and all that stuff. He identified with them. He came where we were, they said. Joseph, a carpenter. Jesus became a carpenter.

He came to a carpenter's home. He lived in a carpenter's shop, and he became a carpenter. He identified. Joseph said, "He understands." Jesus did that because he wanted us to know that—remember where he was going when he came to Bethlehem, all the way up to his throne. When he got home, he would spend his time praying for us, identifying with us, understanding where we were. Not too long ago, struggling with a personal problem and feeling very oppressed by it, waking up with it daily, I woke up one morning and I wasn't oppressed or heavy.

I lay there for a few minutes waiting for that blanket to fall on me, that spirit of heaviness that Isaiah 61 talks about, that garment of heaviness. It didn't come. So I got up and I got ready, and it still wasn't around. I was waiting to be bumped with it, and it didn't come. As I was getting dressed, I thought, "You know something? Somebody's praying for me." A little voice said, "I am. I am, Joe." I remembered that he is, that he came where I was, that he understood that particular problem.

He's stood in our sandals. He's slept in our beds. He's eaten our food. He's been rejected by his family. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. He's been a shepherd. He's been a carpenter. He's been a family man caring for many children. He's been where I've been. The shepherds had their first Christmas, and they returned rejoicing. Where's the joy in Christmas? It's in the situation. Situation didn't change. They stayed shepherds the rest of their lives. They returned to the fields, they returned to the shepherds. Their situation didn't change, but they did, because they had a Christmas.

So let's go to Bethlehem and see, they said, and they saw. What about Simeon? He was enduring a winter of waiting. When I was doing my study on Job, I talked about being in God's waiting room, and waiting being akin to suffering. What are you waiting for this Christmas? Waiting for a child to be conceived or born? Waiting for a prodigal to come home? Waiting for a marriage to be mended? Waiting for a sickness to be healed? Waiting for loneliness to disappear and God to bring a significant other into your life?

Simeon was waiting to die. He said, "I've no peace. I need salvation." God said, "You won't die before you have both." One day, Simeon, led by the Holy Spirit, went into the temple. As he came into the temple at the right time—God's timing is so perfect—Mary and Joseph and the baby were there, and the Holy Spirit said, "This is your salvation." Mary and Joseph put the baby in this righteous man's arms, and he said, "Now my eyes have seen my salvation. My eyes have seen your salvation, which you've prepared in the sight of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, for glory to your people Israel. Now let your servant depart in peace. I'm ready to die."

Why did God come? He came to die himself so that we might not be frightened of death, so that we might know there is a crown for us, a throne for us, a Christmas for us in heaven ahead of us. That's why he came, to give us salvation, to save us from going to a place where we would never have a Christmas and being apart from God forever. He came to do something about death. Christmas is about death. It's about destroying death.

Christ's birth destroyed death. Doesn't mean we don't still have to go through it, but for the Christian, we can be promised life everlasting. Receiving it now as we receive Christ, we receive his life. He that has the Son has life, eternal life, the life that's going to matter in heaven. Then when we die and go through the process of bodily death, we are released into that experience for all eternity without the encumbrances of our bodies. God is going to give us new bodies.

I've told this story in church, but I want to tell it again here. As I was babysitting our two eldest grandchildren, Danny and Mike, I bathed them and stripped them off, and their two little piles of clothes were there, and put them in the bath, wrapped them up and dried them off. They got into their pajamas and into bed and told the stories and dealt with the drinks of water and all the things that putting off the light and having to go to sleep.

As I was eventually going out of the door, Danny said to me, "Nana, I was watching the television. It was Nixon's funeral." He said, "It was President Nixon's funeral, Nana." I said, "Yes." He said, "I was watching it on television, Nana, and they put him in the box." I said, "The coffin, yes, the box. What's your question?" "Nana, how long will I be in the box?" I put the light on again and I came and I sat in his bed. Michael curled up on my other side, and I said, "Danny, not one second will you be in the box. Absent from the body, present with the Lord.

He that believes in me, said Jesus, will never die. When you are dying, you will never die. Your body will, but you will never die. Absent from the body, present with the Lord. That's what Christmas is all about. That's what he came to do. God so loved the world he gave his only begotten Son that whoever believes, trusts that, will not perish. Won't be in the box, but have everlasting life." Michael, at this point, who had been very still and quiet listening, said, "Nana, does everybody know about this?"

I said, "No, they don't, Michael." He said, "Then we have to tell them. Joey doesn't know." Michael went to school the next day to speak about the unspeakable and describe the indescribable gift of God. Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift, for his unspeakable gift. Then Michael said to me, "Nana, if we're not going to be in the box, what goes in the box?" Children are wonderful. I looked down at the floor, and there were these two little piles of clothes.

I said, "Look at this. I stripped Danny here, and I stripped you off here, Michael. These are your clothes, right?" "Yeah, Nana." "That's what goes in the box. Our body is like these clothes." So Michael, very practical, said, "Will we be naked then?" I said, "Oh no, Michael, you'll have glory clothes. Your body, robes the Bible talks about. There will be a glory about your resurrection body like I believe there was before the fall even in the Garden of Eden. That's why they felt naked when they sinned; the glory went. But there'll be glory clothes, something to wear."

You know Simeon said, "My eyes have seen my salvation, now let me depart in peace." There's two things you have to learn to do in life: one is to live and one is to die. Do you know how to live? Do you know how to die? That's all. Simeon had been in God's waiting room. Now he could die in peace, sure of his salvation, knowing where he was going. He was going to celebrate Christmas in heaven. All these people had a Christmas. Have you had your first Christmas?

Maybe you've had many winter masses, but have you celebrated your very first Christmas? Let me tell you about my first Christmas. I was 19 years of age, and I'd had 19 wonderful winter masses. You can have a marvelous time with Rudolph and sleigh bells: fun time, a fun festival. Our home was warm, it was decorated. My mother just made that home such a marvelous place to be in. Chestnuts on the open fire and Bing. Bing Crosby, in case you didn't realize. For those of you who are a lot younger, he was a singer in my age. He sang a song, "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas." What nostalgia for me, because it was my father's favorite song.

Then I went to Cambridge, and somebody got hold of me, and they spoke about the unspeakable and described the indescribable while I was lying in a hospital bed. I understood that God so loved Jill Briscoe that he gave his only begotten Son, that if Jill Briscoe would believe in him, she would not perish but have everlasting life. She explained how the Christ by his Spirit could be born in me. My life could become a Bethlehem, so that people could say, "Come, let's go to Bethlehem and see the child, the Christ in me."

At the age of 19, I had my first Christmas. I found a Christian friend who I just met, and we went to church. I'll always remember sitting there, my very first Christmas. "O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie." All of the words began to make sense. That last verse that says, "Where meek souls will receive him still, the dear Christ enters in." Yes! How could I miss it? Standing in my traditional school singing carols year after year, how could I miss all that?

"Hark the herald angels sing. Veiled in flesh the Godhead see." God's unspeakable, indescribable gift, yes. How could I miss it? How blind could I be? We walked home singing at the top of our lungs. She was as bad as me, so it didn't matter. I said goodbye, and it was midnight by the time I got home. I walked in the room and people turned around and looked at me and stopped doing what they were doing. Silence fell. I thought, "What are they looking at?"

My aunt said, "Where've you been, Jill?" My sister said, "She's been to church." My mother's friend said, "Yeah, you can see that. Look at her face." I had no idea what they were talking about, but I realized they were coming to Bethlehem and seeing something of that joy that I had been celebrating. They were seeing something of the Christ of Christmas. It was my first Christmas. I was able to tell a couple of them a little bit about the fact that Christ came.

If our greatest need had been information, God would have sent us an educator. If our greatest need had been technology, God would have sent us a scientist. If our greatest need had been money, God would have sent us an economist. If our greatest need had been pleasure, God would have sent us an entertainer. But our greatest need was forgiveness, and so God sent us a Savior. Stumblingly, I tried to tell them about God's unspeakable, indescribable gift. I didn't do very well. How could I? A couple of weeks old in Christ, didn't know what I was talking about, didn't know how to talk about it. But I had to try! And so must we. Because there's a whole city of people out here who are heading for winter mass. We'd like to say, wouldn't we, "Come to Bethlehem and see what it's all about."

Pray with me. Joy is Jesus wrapped in swaddling bands, joy is Jesus in Mary's loving hands. Joy is Jesus making sorrow sing, mending deepest heartaches, what a gift to bring. For brought he from the heavens, knowing well his plan, laid him in our hostile arms, precious Son of Man. Knowing all beforehand, the crib, the cross, the cost, he came to taste our Calvarys and seek and save the lost. That's me, that's you, and that's everyone else.

Lord, I would in very simple prayer invite these folks to make this prayer their own and invite you to come into their lives. Maybe you want to borrow my words: I've had many winter masses, dear God, but I'd like to have my first real Christmas and celebrate your extravagant generosity, your unspeakable gift, your indescribable gift in sending Christ to earth, to me, to my carpenter's shop, to my stable, to my life. Come in, Lord, by your Spirit. Be born in me. Forgive my sins, for that's why you came, so that I might never have to go in the box and I might gather with others around your throne and celebrate Christmas for all eternity. Give me your life, and then help me somehow to speak about the unspeakable, describe the indescribable to all my friends, my family, my world this Christmas. I ask it for Christ's sake, Amen.